The Unifying Idea
Shahrur links the Qur’an and human civilization in art and architecture, and sees beauty, art, and human stability as developing historically rather than being understood as fixed givens.
The theses included in the axis
- Beauty develops historically and does not remain fixed.
- Architecture begins with function, then comes beauty.
- Human stability emerged from livestock and agriculture.
- Poetry and literature stand at the top of the artistic hierarchy.
Support for the axis from the atoms
- Beauty develops with knowledge and history
- Beauty is a later stage than function
- Function precedes beauty in architecture
- Livestock and agriculture contributed to stability
- Poetry and literature are the highest arts
Reading method
This page is read as a link between looking at the text and looking at human architecture. Here, art is not an isolated ornament, but the fruit of development in knowledge, stability, and function.